Thick as Thieves
by I-survived-life
Summary: Laverna Nicholas came from a family of thieves and con-artists. Basically, criminals. James Potter came from a huge loving family who had earned everything they had the honest way. Basically, good people. How does James have anything to do with Laverna? Well, he caught her trying to steal his Invisibility Cloak out of his trunk.


The number one rule that every thief or con-artist knows about is that you don't get caught. This goes without saying of course because if you get caught, you get thrown in prison and as nice as the cells in Azkaban are these days, they're not_ that_ nice.

Laverna Nicholas was perfectly aware of this as she walked by the Potter household in broad daylught. In the few seconds that she glanced at the building, she took in the family and the large amount of relatives that were visiting. She also noticed how big the grounds of the Potter house were and how far she'd have to go in order to reach her destination.

Clearly, apparating into the place was not an option if the people that were showing up around the corner and walking through the gates of the property were any indication.

And so Laverna kept walking and walking and when she was far away from the house someone appeared next to her as if from nowhere and continued to walk with her.

"So, are you still going to try and steal the broom," Grace Nicholas asked her sister as they walked down the street and to who knows where. There wasn't really any destination in mind, the two sisters were just walking; getting away from their target.

"Of course I am, why wouldn't I?" Laverna said glancing at her sister briefly before turning her attention to the front and onto the bustling sidewalk full of muggles.

"Well, it's Harry Potter's house for one thing and if you so much as even put one foot on their property without their permission the ministry could charge you a hefty fine," Grace said like it was the most obvious thing, which it was. Harry Potter was extremely high up in the ministry and if you violated his privacy in any way, you would have to pay for it . . . quite literally.

"Who cares, it's not like I'll get caught, I've done this before," Laverna said as she and her sister entered a coffee shop together. They stood in the line of muggles waiting for their turn to be served.

"Ahem, Paraguay -"

"Would you all let that go!" Laverna exclaimed staring at her sister incredulously. It had been almost four months since the incident had happened and everyone was still going on about the fact that Laverna had messed up on the job. It's not like it was that big of a deal anyway, everyone got out alive. Some people were sent to prison but that was just minor details.

"You got Uncle Felix thrown in jail!" Grace exclaimed loudly. Perhaps too loudly because now the majority of the attention in the cafe was focused on the two sisters and it had gone quiet quite suddenly.

"Would you keep it down and it is not my fault that Uncle Felix decided to barge into the room in drag and start claiming he was my mother after I had said that mine was dead," Laverna said glaring at her sister. "Oh, what are you all looking at, haven't you ever landed one of your uncle's in jail!"

"That was not the part that I was referring to, that was Uncle Felix's fault," Grace said as they moved forward in the line. Everyone had turned back to their coffee and was now talking about their lives again, the two sisters completely forgotten. The girls were next in line to be served and waited for the man in front of them to pay for his coffee. He searched his pockets for the money that he was sure he'd brought with him but couldn't seem to find it. The girl behind the counter grew more annoyed as time passed by and was full out glaring at the man after he'd been searching for his money for five minutes.

Giving a dejected sigh, the man gave back the coffee and left the coffee shop empty handed and with no money.

"Oh, so it's the fact that I tripped him as we were trying to run out now is it, two decafs please," Laverna added to the girl standing behind the counter. She hurried off to get the order ready but it was clear that she was trying to eavesdrop in on the conversation because she wouldn't stray too far from the counter and kept asking people to get things for her.

"You basically sold him out!" Grace exclaimed looking through the little packs of sugar on the side of the counter and quickly slipping about five packs up her sleeve. Laverna noticed this and rolled her eyes at her sister's antics. Grace had a habit of taking anything and everything that could be stolen. There were days when she'd leave the house and come back with five pairs of shoes.

"I tripped him as we were running, I did not sell him out," Laverna pointed out. She smiled at the girl who handed her and Grace their coffee and gave her the money that they were supposed to pay.

"Where did you get the money, you didn't have any with you when you left the house this morning," Grace said eyeing her sister. She was obviously impressed that Laverna had managed to get something without her noticing.

"You're right, I didn't. I took it off of the man in front of us," Laverna said sipping her coffee.

"Aunt Helena is going to be so proud of you, she keeps going on about how you'll make a great thief one day," Grace said grinning down at her little sister. While Grace was almost six feet tall, Laverna was only five foot five so just about everyone looked down on her.

"I'll be sure to tell Aunt Helena about this day when she's finished robbing the royal family of some of their china," Laverna said. The girls turned down a quiet but deserted street that was full of houses. Most of the houses were large and eye-catching which left no one in doubt that some very rich people lived in them. The house that the two sisters were walking towards was not like the other houses, it was small and blended in with the background and completely unmemorable.

From the way that people ignored it and wouldn't even glance at it, you'd think it was invisible or something.

"Why is Aunt Helena robbing the royal family?" Grace asked her sister frowning. They walked up to the front door of the small house and attempted to open it but it was locked. Instead of knocking, Grace simply flicked her wand at the door and with a faint click, it swung open.

"We ran out of china, Hamish broke the entire set that we had of them trying to control that giant dog of his that he got from the pound," Laverna said taking off her coat and shoes and putting them away. She and Grace made their way to the kitchen together to get some food. There was a mouthwatering smell coming from it and obviously you follow the smell, right?

Who was cooking? Was Laverna and Grace's mum home or was it their dad cooking? It couldn't be their dad though, Laverna hadn't heard from him in a few days so she was assuming that he was on a job somewhere and couldn't contact her. Everyone agreed that those two were the best cooks out of everyone.

"Why did Hamish have a dog?" Grace asked as her sister as they entered the kitchen.

"Do you really want to know -Ceilia, what are you doing here?" Laverna asked their cousin frowning. Ceilia had been sitting at the table eating soup from a plastic bowl and flipping through a magazine that she no doubt had stolen from a muggle store.

"What, am I not allowed to visit?" Ceilia asked her cousins not bothering to look up from her magazine. "I cooked food by the way, it's in the pot, grab a plastic bowl and sit down."

"As much as I love having you visit and criticize my clothing and just about everything else about me, I thought you were trying to shake off Interpol."

"No, I dealt with them yesterday, by the way, your dad says hi," Ceilia added as Grace and Laverna sat down across from her at the kitchen table.

"What's dad doing lately, anyway?" Laverna asked Ceilia.

"He's guarding Buckingham Palace, duh." Ceilia said this like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Laverna however wasn't catching on and had a rather confused expression on her face. She didn't really understand why she was supposed to know this and though she knew she'd look like an idiot for asking why, she asked anyway.

"Why is he guarding Buckingham Palace?"

"How else was Aunt Helena supposed to get into the place?" Ceilia asked her cousin giving her a look that said that she clearly thought Laverna was stupid. "What do you two have planned for today?"

"Well, Laverna is going to rob the Potter household," Grace replied before Laverna could say anything. Ceilia snorted into her bowl of soup before wiping her nose with a napkin. Clearly, Ceilia thought the idea as stupid as Grace did, Laverna gave her sister and Ceilia an annoyed look but didn't say anything.

"I'll come visit you in prison Laverna," Ceilia said finishing up her soup and putting her bowl in the kitchen sink. Why did everyone think that it was impossible to rob the Potter household, it couldn't have possibly been as hard as everyone was making it out to be.

"If anyone needs me, I'll be getting my beauty sleep," Ceilia announced and left the kitchen heading for the stairs leading to the second floor and to a guest bedroom with her name on it.

"Maybe your head will get filled with something while you're sleeping for once," Laverna muttered quietly.

"I heard that!" Ceilia called back making Laverna jump. She scowled at the stairs and began to stomp around the kitchen cleaning things that were already clean in the first place.

Nobody really owned the house, nobody paid for the house, in fact, as far as the government was concerned, the house that Laverna and Grace were in didn't even exist. No one had come to buy the property, no one had noticed that people seemed to disappear into thin air every day and no one questioned it. In fact, no one even saw the house at all.

Of course, Laverna's family wasn't complaining, they didn't want people asking questions or looking too closely.

Even though the house really belonged to nobody, if you asked anyone in Laverna's family who the house belonged to they'd say Aunt Helena. A thief didn't have a home, a thief was always moving around the world, stealing things putting something back and they never carried anything with them that they couldn't later abandon or that they couldn't carry. It went without saying then that you didn't get too attached to people either because it would make things more difficult when you left them behind.

Aunt Helena was one of the few thiefs in the world who was allowed to have a house, a permanent residency . . . illegally, of course. If the government knew that Aunt Helena was living in the small house in a rich neighbourhood they'd be charging her and really, who wanted to have to keep stealing to pay the bills. As far as the English government knew, Helena Lennox didn't exist at all.

"How long until you attempt to rob the Potter household?" Grace asked flopping down onto the couch in the living room. Laverna didn't miss how her sister had emphasized the word try. This just made her more determined to succeed in what she was going to do.

"Well, it's about four o'clock right now so maybe in eight hours I'll be heading over to the place. Apparently some relatives of the Potters are staying over or something so I'll have to watch out for them. Some of them might have a weird sleepwalking problem or something," Laverna said shrugging and laying down on the other couch.

There was no TV in the house, after all, why would there be? Nobody really lived in it and the place was mostly used for meetings, plans and food. While Grace lay on the couch and went to sleep, Laverna went around the house looking for a book to read and resisted the strong urge to go and draw on Ceilia and Grace's face. It would be a mean thing to do but, then again, she was a thief and thieves were criminals so it wouldn't be that out of character.

She managed to hunt down a book and for the next several hours Laverna sat on her sister Grace in the living room. After two hours, Laverna had gotten tired of reading the book and so she climbed off of her sister and went into the kitchen looking through cupboards and slamming the doors shut when she didn't find anything to her taste.

Laverna looked in the fridge and frowned when she saw that it was almost empty of food, she'd probably have to go grocery "shopping" and get some more food. It was probably her turn to get the food anyway, she wasn't really sure.

By the time that it was dark and late enough for people to be in their beds and fast asleep Laverna was so bored that she had seriously considered just smacking her head against the wall repeatedly just so she'd have something to do. The time did arrive though and while Ceilia and Grace were still asleep in their spots, Laverna changed clothes so that it would be easier to move about and slipped out of the house quietly.

Laverna shivered as she stood on the doorstep of the small house. It was chilly outside and her thoughts of walking to the Potter household completely disappeared. She'd apparate to the spot that all of the Potter's relatives had been apparating to that day.

Apparating was a big no no for thieves because the Ministry would know where you apparated to the minute you disappeared into thin air. They'd know where you'd gone and it just made you a lot easier to catch. Laverna knew this, just like the rest of her family did as well and just like the rest of her family, she'd gotten her apparating license under a different name and appearance. As far as the Ministry was concerned, it wasn't Laverna Nicholas who was apparating, it was Mary O'Neill.

Once she'd appeared at her destination, Laverna made sure that there was no one around and then made her way down the street towards the Potter household. She didn't walk so fast that it was obvious to people she was going somewhere but she didn't walk too slow either to give the impression that she was making sure no one was around.

If anyone had looked out of their window all they would've seen would've been a teenager walking down the street with a slightly serious look on her face and they would've just assumed that she was having a tough time and was going for a walk to clear her head.

Laverna came up to the gates that were locked, she looked them up and down and then stood there thinking for a moment. She was debating where to pick the lock on the gates or just use Alohomora. Alohomora would be much quicker and she needed to be quick but the spell might not work and then she'd be wasting time trying to pick the lock.

After thinking about it she settled for the spell and hoping for the best, pointed her wand at the gate and whispered "_Alohomora!" _She heard a faint click and staring at the lock in astonishment, she pushed the door open and walked into the Potter's property.

Amazingly, there were no spells put up against intruders and when she thought about it, why should there be. There was no war, no one trying to kill someone and besides, the house was most likely full of relatives so anyone breaking in would have a hard time of getting out if they were caught.

Laverna walked as fast as she could without making a sound to the back of the house. Keeping close to the house, she opened the fence separating the backyard from the frontyard and slithered through the small fence opening. She looked around in the dark for the broomshed. Once she found it, Laverna cast a Disillusionment Charm on herself and ran across the yard quietly.

She took the padlock off of the door and pulled it open. She took in the large amount of brooms shoved into the place and grabbed one at random. It really didn't matter which broom she chose, they were all the latest version anyway, there weren't old Cleansweeps hanging around.

She hopped on the broom and flew it up to the window of the room where all the Potter kids put their things in when they came back from Hogwarts. Laverna sighed in relief when she noticed that nothing had been moved yet, she'd been afraid that the Potters would've moved everything around and nothing would be in the same place as she'd seen it yesterday.

Laverna carefully lifted the window open, making sure to not make it squeak and once it was opened wide enough for her to fit her body through she carefully got off of the borrowed broom and crawled through the open window. The broom hovered outside the window waiting for Laverna to get back on it. Laverna straightened herself out and tapped her wand to the top of her head, taking off the Disillusionment Charm.

Laverna looked around the room trying to make out who's stuff was who's. She couldn't make out the names on the trunks and she wasn't about to light up her wand and let anyone who was passing by know that she was in there.

Sighing, Laverna got down on her hands and knees and read the name of each and every single trunk in the room. She sighed every time she found the wrong one. Apparently she'd been wrong when she thought it would just be the Potters living in the house, it seemed that the Potters were having some cousins stay over if the trunks labeled "Roxanne Weasley" and "Louis Weasley" were anything to go by.

Finally, Laverna found James Potter's trunks and gave a silent cheer. She sat on her knees before his trunk and started to open the clasps that were holding the thing closed. The first thing Laverna saw when she opened the trunk were a pair of Batman boxers that she couldn't help but snigger at.

Very classy James, very classy.

She rifled through James's clothes, threw some over her shoulders until she found James' Invisibility Cloak at the bottom of the trunk. She lifted the material to her face and looked at it closely. Something felt off. It wasn't just the cloak either, it was everything in the room. Laverna shook the thought from her head though and focused on the cloak in her hands.

It felt right, and it looked right but at the same time, it didn't. Laverna covered her hand with the cloak and peered closely at where her wrist supposedly ended. She could've sworn that she saw the faint outline of her fingers. If what she knew about Invisitibility Cloaks, she shouldn't've been able to see anything, so then why could she see her fingers?

"What are you doing?" asked a voice behind her. Laverna froze for a second and then slowly turned around to look at who had just caught her. She was looking up into the face of none other than James Potter himself.

* * *

**a/n: **I really wanted to start writing this and after an April Fool's prank, I finally got around to starting it. I was going to make the chapter longer but that probably would've been another one to two thousand words more.

For the first time ever, the name of the main character actually has meaning behind it instead of just being chosen randomly. I'm extremely proud of that even if it is a pretty small thing. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, let me know what you thought of it!


End file.
